Rapid delivery service Zapp raised $200 million in a Series B funding round to expand its footprint in larger U.K. cities, enhance its technology and improve its overall customer experience, according to a press release emailed to PYMNTS.
The funding was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, 468 Capital and BroadLight Capital, with participation by Atomico, Burda, Vorwerk Ventures and Formula One star Lewis Hamilton. JPMorgan Chase & Co. advised Zapp on the funding round. The fresh capital brings the startup’s total funding raised to $300 million since it was founded in 2020.
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Zapp relies on dark stores to fulfill orders of groceries and convenience store items and last year opened a 25,000 square foot distribution center in London to restock its smaller micro-fulfillment centers. Zapp operates 24/7 and aims to get orders to people’s doors in 20 minutes. It currently delivers in seven cities including London, Amsterdam and Paris.
“We’re on a long-term journey to build a technology-enabled supply chain that can deliver thousands of products to hundreds of millions of customers around the world faster and more sustainably than any other supply chain can today,” Zapp co-founder Joe Falter said in a statement.
“With this new capital we will focus on achieving profitability in our existing markets as well as bringing Zapp to new customers globally,” Falter added.
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Falter was part of the founding team at on-demand services business Jumia through to the group’s IPO. He co-founded Zapp with Navid Hadzaad, who serves as CEO, and was most recently a product leader at Amazon’s Seattle HQ. Hadzaad founded GoButler and scaled several ventures at Rocket Internet. Zapp’s leadership team includes former employees of Deliveroo, Just Eat, Domino’s and Tesco.
“Convenience retail is one of the last segments of retail to move fully online but is really having its moment post-lockdown. As people return to their busy lives, rapid delivery allows them to ‘live in the moment’ and Zapp has been built from the ground up to harness this consumer behavior and is seeing exceptional customer loyalty as a result,” said Rytis Vitkauskas, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners.
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